SABU AND THE MAGIC RING (1957)

In this B-movie Arabian Nights fantasy, Sabu is a lowly stable boy in Samarkand who takes care of the caliph's elephant. When a large yellow diamond is discovered missing from the elephant's headdress, Sabu scrounges the ground until he discovers a shiny ring. Ready to toss it away, he accidentally rubs it against his vest and a genie named Ubal appears (actually, he insists he's an ifrit, a demon, saying "I eat genies for breakfast" though he never acts demonically) to grant his wishes, though he warns Sabu that he is a slave to the ring, not the person, so if Sabu would lose the ring, Ubal would not longer serve him. Sabu discovers that his boss Kimal and the prime minister Mazufa have stolen the elephant's diamond and sold it to finance a revolt against the caliph, and that they are now looking for the magic ring. He gives it to his girlfriend Zumila for safe keeping, but that means when Mazufa captures Sabu, he can't call on Ubal for help. At one point, a goose swallows the ring and Sabu tries to keep it out of the clutches of the bad guys until it lays an egg with the ring in it. With the help of the genie, Sabu and Zumila stop an assassination plot against the caliph and restore stability to the kingdom. I remember this from my youth when it was run on Saturday afternoons or at Thanksgiving, and I’d searched for it off and on for years, so I was pleased that it popped up. It was shot as a TV pilot and wasn't picked up, so it's got a shoddy low-budget look. Most of the scenes take place in a stable and a marketplace, and the magical effects are pretty much limited to the genie appearing and disappearing. For a one hour movie, it's a bit sluggish, though things move at a better pace in the last half. Sabu again plays a character named Sabu and, again, he gives it his all. William Marshall (later Blacula and Pee-Wee Herman's King of Cartoons) makes a good genie, looking imposing and wise though not perhaps as threatening as he might be. The two bad guys, Peter Mamakos as Mazufa and John Doucette as Kimal, are pretty good. Daria Massey is an uninspiring heroine. Though it was shot and released in color, the only print I could find is in black and white, which robs it of whatever interesting visual elements it might have had. Kids today would be bored silly by this, and boomers looking to relive a pleasant memory will be disappointed. Pictured are Marshall, Sabu, and Massey. [YouTube]